ABSTRACT
This chapter defends global or cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice against particularists or those who oppose universalist norms in the name of the sovereign state. It presents a case for global principles of equality of opportunity and to meet several challenges to cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice. Danilo Zolo argued that the global government required by the cosmopolitan programme would necessarily be a form of imperialism. Even if one accepts that global distributive justice does not necessitate a repressive world state, a critic might argue that it fails to accord enough room to states. That is, even if a cosmopolitan agrees that there should be an international framework consisting of states, some critics argue that cosmopolitanism sanctions interference in the independence of states. According to the self-government argument, the problem with cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice is that, in some circumstances, they require restricting the independence of those states containing impoverished citizens.
